Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen (2019)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Ghosteen Image result for ghosteen

Nick Cave tour 2019: How to get tickets for 'Conversations' shows ...

Nick Cave is often a perennial candidate for these kinds of year-end lists, but it seems particularly evident with his current career resurgence (can you even call it a resurgence when he never really stopped making great, compelling music?) Regardless, for those not aware, similar to Phil Elverum's Mount Eerie project, the last few years for Cave have been dominated by tragedy. Specifically, the 2015 death of his 15-year-old son Arthur who fell from a cliff in England. A year later, Cave released Skeleton Tree, a singular work clearly defined by this loss and one of the strongest albums he's ever released. But where that record was sparse and disturbing in its frankness and personal anguish, Ghosteen, it's sister-album, is a sprawling meditation on life and death. Farther removed from the tragedy but just as heart-wrenching, the double-album manages to diffuse its length and subject matter with a few glimmers of optimism and existentialism to help guide the massive undertaking. While Ghosteen isn't perfect, it could come from no other place at no other time and carries its hefty baggage with an unheard-of grace.
~8.5

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